I recently watched the 11 episodes of the Ys Legacy anime collection based on the video games Ys 1 and Ys 2 by Falcom. I first got to see it at MAGfest last year when I caught two episodes. A legendary hero was heading for a shrine up on a mountain, while battling monsters along the way. He makes it into the shrine, finds a secret passage, and finds a girl imprisoned in the boss room, where he fights a large worm. Defeating the worm, the girl is set free and he obtains the reward for the dungeon, a Book of Ys. Being a big Legend of Zelda a fan, Ys reminded me of it, and I imagine a Zelda anime would be like this.

Ys is about an ancient land called Ys that was ruled by two goddesses and six priests. Then monsters appeared and the land of Ys was sealed away from the rest of the world, the goddesses disappeared and the six priests passed down Books of Ys to their descendants. 700 years later the monsters are back, and the land where Ys stood, now called Esteria, is in danger. Adol Christin, the brave soul, appears and barely manages to make it to Esteria despite the storm barrier surrounding the island, and sets out to find the source of the monsters and retrieve the 6 Books of Ys.

What I liked about the Ys anime is that it had the same kind of story and setting that I liked about the earlier Zelda games, like Zelda: A Link to the Past. Seeing how the Ys anime and games are older than Zelda: A Link to the Past, I wonder if it was any kind of influence. There is an ancient kingdom of Ys (Ys), and there’s an ancient kingdom of the Hylia (Zelda). Two goddesses bestow the black pearl to man giving them magic and power that led to greed, while the three goddesses of Hyrule left the Triforce that will grant the wish of anyone that leads to greed. The land of Ys gets sealed away in the sky to remove the evil, and the King of Evil, Ganon, is sealed away by the 7 Sages after obtaining the Triforce. There’s even a scene where, to get to Esteria, Adol crosses the sea in a small sailing boat and is caught up in a storm, and then washes ashore, and if it weren’t for it being older, I would have said it was ripped straight out of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. So I have to wonder if there wasn’t a little bit of inspiration there from Ys in Zelda, or if it came from a similar source.

The first Ys series is 7 episodes long and was made in the late 80s, so it has that detailed older style anime look that I like. The animation starts out good for the first 2 episodes, with a lot of animation on the boss fight, but takes a fall from episode 3 and onwards. The character designs are still good, but the amount of animated frames is lessened, such as boss fights, and most scenes don’t look as well drawn. It’s still enjoyable, and the story moves at a good pace with only 7 episodes. The music is great too, all of it arrangements of the music from the games, and most of the episodes ending with a wonderful vocal song, Endless History (The Morning Glow), leading into the credits.

Ys 2 was made a few years later is 4 episodes long and while it boasts a consistant amount of animation, the character design and art style has changed to be more simpler and rough. Its quite a contrast to the previous episodes, with returning characters looking a bit off, Adol looks a little too generic, and some of the character designs seem to be based on more recent versions of Ys at the time. The story continues from Ys 1 and has good continuity, with references to the previous episodes and the same voice actors returning. I did not like it as much as Ys 1, as it was much darker with the land of Ys overrun with monsters, and Adol admitting he could not save anyone. It didn’t seem to like what I think “Ys” is like that the first Ys series did, so I wonder how much the anime differs from the Ys 2 game. Also, Adol used magic way too much, and barely touches a sword, even when he gets his usual red and silver armor.

The story of Ys 2 was interesting in that Adol’s situation was reversed from the first Ys. Before, he came to the island of Esteria where monsters had begun appearing and was generally welcomed as a hero. Arriving on the floating island of Ys, he comes to a land where monsters have been requiring human sacrifices for 700 years. No one realizes they are on a island floating above the earth, believing they bound by the edges of their world and that the end of the world is near. Adol is treated like a heretic, and journey’s to the “edge of the world” to prove there is land below.

The DVD menus are modeled after the old games, with a map and menu selections, and even fake load times for transitions. The best extra on the discs were the dub outtakes, with Adol replying to Reah’s (Lea) reward with “A song? Next time get your own damn harmonica!”. Disc 2’s outtakes were hidden, and are accessed by tapping down on the extras menu past “main menu”.

Not having played any of the games, I really enjoyed watching the Ys anime, with it being based on a video game with a hero going on an adventure, and I feel like watching it again. Afterwards, I did a little browsing through some Ys related sites and found a free demo for the PC remake of Ys 1 and started playing…

I’ve been going each year since MAGfest 3 in 2004, when it was in Williamsburg Virginia and a 3 hour drive away. It’s almost like a underground community of gamers that meet every year for a giant party because the convention doesn’t get the same publicity as other large game conventions. I met some new friends there, and every where you look there would be something exciting about video games. Whether it was the variety of games and tournaments, like Tetris Attack and Mario Kart, independent video game films from groups like X-Strike Studios, and panels about aspects of games, its a big gathering for the gaming culture.

The highlight of MAGfest 3 was seeing live video game bands play game music. On Friday night the NESkimos played Bionic Commando for 20 minutes and encored with a Super Mario Bros. medley, and were preceded by Chromelodeon that played most of the soundtrack to Ninja Gaiden 2. They actually had too many bands that they added Friday night for concerts. Saturday started off with the Wave Theory mixing it up with freestyling rapping, then the reunion of Jenova Project (the group that preceded the Minibosses) playing music from FFIV and FFVI, and the Smash Bros. consisting of several video game remixers, including Virt who recently did the soundtrack to Contra 4. Finally there was the Minibosses where I got to see them play live for the first time and heard their Super Mario Bros. 2 medley.

MP3 recordings of Saturday’s concert were released shortly after the con, and I have a few up here.

At MAGfest 4 (2006), Wave Theory put on a great show, with a narrative about a hero going from world to world that lead into their next remix. At MAGfest 5 (2007) they topped this with a story told via video projected behind the group about Dracula destroying all of the game worlds with only Jonathan and Charlotte from Portrait of Ruin left to save the world, complete with voice acting. This would lead into the next remix as Jonathan and Charlotte jumped into a painting leading to the next game world, then the group would play with game footage of the game playing in the background. I believe it was put together in about 3 weeks. Unfortunately, the only remaining footage are the intro and 30 sec clips recorded at the concert that are linked to below. When Samus’ ship was shown for the next world, I was excited because I thought “Super Metroid!”, but then saw it was even better, Metroid 2.

Wave Theory clips
Intro
Metroid 2
Flash Man
Rainbow Road
Sonic

Also playing last year was This Place is Haunted that rocked the Castlevania soundtrack, and Arm Cannon with a arm cannon theme, both of which are scheduled to come back this year. Two new bands have been announced for MAGfest 6, The Advantage, and Select Start. Select Start will be intersting because they are an orchestral style group, and The Advantage doesn’t come to the east coast very often. Here are a few samples from the bands.

This Place is Haunted
Castlevania 1 Medley (MAGfest 5)
Nintendo Medley (MAGfest 5)

Arm Cannon
Mega Man 3
Super Metroid

Select Start
Color of the Summer Sky (Secret of Mana)
Metroid Title + Kraid

The Advantage
Flash Man
Goonies 2

The main thing that convinced me to go to MAGfest 3 was a 40 minute documentary on MAGfest 2 by X-Strike Studios. Also linked below is a news report on MAGfest 4 and a short clip show documentary.

X-Strike Studios’ MAGfest 2 Documentary
Low Quality
High quality

News report on MAGfest 4

MAGfest 4 “Mini-Documentary”

One thing I’d like to see improved at MAGfest 6 are the tournaments, which in the past couple of years have had trouble running on time. Sign up sheets for tournaments were a bit confusing along without any signs to point out the times of scheduled tournaments or those that were taking place. Looking at the schedule from last year you can get an idea of the kinds of tournaments and other events that are held at MAGfest. New this year is a series of challenges for various NES games where you compete to complete a certain objective like beating Super Mario Bros. without dying and collecting less than 20 coins. I’m looking forward to taking on SMB, Zelda 2, Castlevania, and Mega Man 2.

Coming as a guest this year is the Angry Video Game Nerd along with Screw Attack, and I expect to see the nerd cursing games in the game room. He also just came out with his first DVD release. PBC Productions will also be there supposedly with DVDs of Captain S, and its rumored they might show something new.

So if you are at least in the MD/DC/VA area and are into video games and video game music, you should check out MAGfest this January.

In anticipation of Super Mario Galaxy, and the recent Virtual Console release of Super Mario Bros. 3, I took out my old NES cartridge, cleaned it with a q-tip, and have been playing Super Mario Bros. 3 for the last few days to completion. Although I did get the virtual console version, I still opted to play through the original on my NES. There are a few very minor emulation problems with the color tone and sound effect quality on Wii, and there’s nothing like playing a game on the original hardware with the NES controller in hand. I don’t care for the SNES version as much either, although it looks nicer, some of its style is lost in the upgraded graphics, and the sound effects sound like they’re from Super Mario World.

The SNES version has the addition of a save file, which is nice because there’s a lot to complete, but playing it again, I see that’s what the warp whistles are for. You can grab the two warp whistles in Grass Land fairly quickly to warp to a later world you may have stopped at, and can even reach World 8 quickly if you beat World 1 and use both whistles starting in World 2. So I played off and on, maybe getting to Water Land and quiting, and then coming back and using the whistles to go back to the world I left off on. And I never got tired racing through Grass Land, the game is so much fun to play.

The stages may seem short, but have many places to explore and find secrets, keeping a good pace. There’s so much variety in the game, that when I get done with one stage, I want to get right to the next stage. You’ve got scrolling stages, underwater stages, castle stages with exploration, stages with giant enemies, stages of flying airships and tanks, etc. Because they may only appear briefly, the rare powerups of the frog suit, tanooki suit, hammer bros suit, and kuribo’s shoe are all the more special when you do get them, and a loss when you get hit and loose them. I actually missed the hammer bros. suit on my way through Pipe Land somehow. There’s a few enemies that only appear maybe once like the flashing Bullet Bills that turn around to chase you, and the white pihrana plant that shoots a bunch of fireballs that completely took me by surprise. The difficulty goes up as you reach World 6 and 7, and I was suprised by Ludwig Von Koopa, World 7’s boss, as he was a little bigger than the rest and stomped and shook the ground like a sumo brother.

From the look of Super Mario Galaxy with its crazy levels and concept, it might be Super Mario Bros. 3 good.

I just beat the virtual console release of Super Mario Bros. 2 (JPN), and I’ve started on The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for DS. It’s been sitting around unopened since release while I was busy in the Mushroom Kingdom determined to rescue the princess. I was a bit dissapointed in Twilight Princess on Gamecube, a rant for another time, so I’m hoping Phantom Hourglass doesn’t let me down. So far its been OK, the stylus controls don’t feel as tight as a d-pad, but its different. It feels like it was made so that everyone could play this game, as you just point and drag the stylus to control Link, point to talk to people, or look in your inventory, simplifying the controls so there aren’t any buttons to remember. I feel like I can pick up and play the game in short bursts when I have time. The overworld graphics remind me of Animal Crossing because of the 3-D perspective.

Dracula X for the Super Nintendo was the Castlevania game that introduced me to the series, and while its often compared to the original PC Engine version, it’s still a solid SNES game. I bought it used last year, and played it over and over again. I liked how short the game was, the 6 or so stages can be beat in one sitting, I never use the passwords. The original PC Engine Dracula X is finally coming to the U.S. as part of a 3-D remake on the PSP. So it looks like I’ll probably be getting a PSP next week, or at least soon, though other than Dracula X and the two Mega Man remakes, there’s not much else on the PSP that I really want to play. But either I spend $100+ for the Dracula X CD and $150+ for a Turbo Duo, or enjoy The Dracula X Chronicles on PSP now. I still have Zelda to finish, so I’m still undecided if I’ll be picking it up this week, along with a PSP and a memory stick for about $240, and may just pick up the game so I’ll have it ready.

Then there’s Super Mario Galaxy coming out around Nov 13th, that’s just a few weeks away. It looks and sounds like it’ll be a worth sequel to Super Mario 64, maybe Super Mario Bros. 3 good. Super Mario Sunshine wasn’t really Super Mario 64 2, and I remember Miyamoto telling the director that its OK to make it more like Super Mario 64. Sunshine was great up until the very end when I got disappointed by the last area and boss, and the levels felt a little too pedestrian. That is, the stages in Super Mario Galaxy seem more like traditional Mario levels like Super Mario 64. Galaxy is being developed by the new Tokyo EAD team who were responsible for Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, so I’m looking forward to seeing fresh talent work on a Mario game.

I consider myself a Contra fan, but its funny because I’ve only really played the original Contra for NES. I was drawn to the graphics of the locations like the jungle, waterfall, and snowfield stages, and the different power ups you could get like the spreader and fireball guns. So I’m looking forward to the upcoming Contra 4 for DS which especially takes from the original NES games. Unfortunately its coming out the same week as Super Mario Galaxy, so I might have to put this one aside until I get through Mario’s latest adventure. With Contra 4 and The Dracula X Chronicles, its great to see classic gameplay still alive today.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl was delayed to Feb 10th, but oh well, its not much of a surprise with a Nintendo game. Melee has lasted six years, so I hope the next one will last just as long. Sonic’s addition is awesome, he’s finally joining the party. I’d like to see a few more 3rd party characters like Simon Belmont (Castlevania - Konami) and Mega Man (Capcom).

That’s just the few games coming out soon that I really want to play. Of course there’s also recent games I’ve missed, my backlog, and classics I want to find and revisit…

I had also gone through the game without using any warps so I could get to World 9. And wow, was it freaky! 9-1 and 9-2 have you swimming through normal stage layouts, while the background of hills and pipes are colored weird. Then 9-3 is a castle level and you have to pass Koopa through this small stairway, no bridge and axe! I was on the edge of my seat on each stage as the screen scrolled by.

An import game like this has really made Nintendo’s Virtual Console service worthwhile. I had planned to one day get a Famicom AV and a FDS, and would still like to eventually, but I can cross one game off the list that I wanted it for. I had been wanting to play the original version of Super Mario Bros. 2 for a while, in its original Famicom Disk System form versus the SNES Super Mario Allstar release. The Allstars version used the same graphics as the Super Mario Bros. remake, so it didn’t feature the unique graphics the original FDS version had. It also seemed like I had a harder time getting through the game in its original version, so there may have been some difficulty changes between the two.

The original Super Mario Bros. is one of my favorites, and I can run through the entire game from world 1 to 8. Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Lost Levels) is awesome because it is for “Super Players” who’ve gone through the original game, and brings more levels to play through, with some twists and a harder difficulty. It’s like they threw out the rules Super Mario Bros. had, and now there’s flying Bloopers on land stages, and spinning balls of fire on regular stages. Poision mushrooms hurt you, and warp zones my take you back a few levels. One of the last stages puts you in a endless loop unless you find the vine block that takes you up to the sky and to the flagpole goal.

I never got to World 9 in the SNES release, so playing through each world was my goal this time. The game gave me a good feeling, one I hadn’t felt in a video game in a while, seeing the ending with Peach’s rescue and then the message from the Mario staff as I game overed in World 9. It Kinda makes me want to play a few of the other Super Mario Bros. games again. I’ll put the game down for now, but I’ll have to get back to it to open up Worlds A-D, by beating World 8-4 seven more times.

Do they still make puzzle games like this anymore? Adventures of Lolo reminds me of the Legend of Zelda, with its top down view, cute characters, and puzzle solving with blocks. Even though its a puzzle solving game, its not without action, with the game requiring you to move to avoid attack from fire breathing dinosaurs and chasing skulls as you run to the chest after solving the room’s puzzle. The graphics add much charm to the game, with Lolo’s big eyes, happy looking snakes that stand in your way, and sleepy frogs that fall asleep when they touch you. And there’s Lolo’s cute death animation that you’ll see many times solving the puzzles through trial and error.

It’s always exciting to find a new method that you didn’t realize you could do. Like shooting a snake to put it into an egg, and then pushing the egg into the water, and hey, it floats and you and use it as a bridge. Or using only one brick to block both a medusa head and a dinosaurs’ fire by moving it half a space. Or destroying a snake to get to a heart, but waiting until it respawns before getting the heart in order to block the fire of the awakened dinosaur. So solving the puzzles in the game feels very rewarding.

I was stuck in this room for a while after moving at a steady pace. I’d move the bricks to block the medusa heads, but would wind up with an open spot at the top.

Here’s the final room. It looks impossible. If I run straight down, I’m a goner when I reach the chest. If I just try to move an enemy in the top right to block the medusa head, the arrow will slow me down and I’ll get hit. But its really so simple, it just looks overwhelming.

Apparently the Japanese versions featured harder levels, and there are many more games in the Eggerland series as its known in Japan. Some of them even have a custom level editor. This would be a great series for HAL to revive on the Nintendo DS with a level editor and online map trading.

Adventures of Lolo was worth the $5 for me, and best of all, I didn’t have to write down any passwords with the Wii’s resume feature. Though the game probably has the easiest passwords I’ve seen with only four letters to remember. I’ll have to consider picking up the carts off of eBay if the sequels don’t come to virtual console soon enough.